


Exactly Eight Celery Sticks

by Mosca



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diaz and Santiago face the nearly impossible mission of hiding the Captain's husband and protecting his lunch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exactly Eight Celery Sticks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tiriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiriel/gifts).



> Despite recent casting spoilers, the role of Kevin is played by Kyle Secor in this story.
> 
> I'm grateful to [Sandyk](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk) for her beta help!

**1\. Diaz**

"Is Captain Holt around?" 

There was a white guy leaning over Rosa's desk. He was tall, the kind of tall that hunched over so he could look the rest of the world in the eye and made himself seem awkwardly even taller as a result. He was also self-consciously unkempt, like white guys were when they wanted to make sure you knew they were from Brooklyn and not from Manhattan or – worst of all – Jersey. His Polo shirt was a size to tight, so Rosa knew he was gay.

"Probably," Rosa said.

"Can you look?" the guy said.

"No." Feeling charitable, Rosa pointed. "That's Gina. She's his assistant. She'll either help you or natter about handbags and pie until you give up and leave."

"Thanks, but – listen. I'm not technically allowed to be here, so – could you just give him something for me?"

"No," Rosa said.

"Please, I'm –" the guy took a deep breath the way witnesses did before they admitted to some harmless detail that had zero real-world chance of getting them arrested but had been keeping them up nights. "I'm his husband. Kevin. And he – you see – he forgot his lunch. I – I assume you're Detective Diaz, not Santiago? Santiago's the chipper one, right?"

Rosa tried to picture how the Captain could live with a guy who talked this much and not punch him in the face twelve times a day. She assumed he relied on withering glances instead of on his fists. "Yeah. Santiago's the chipper one." Pleased to be the first detective in the Nine-Nine to meet Captain Holt's husband, she played along. If nothing else, she'd have the story to lord over Peralta and Santiago later. "Prove to me that's really his lunch."

"It's a turkey sandwich on whole-grain bread with one tomato slice, one slice of red onion, and a light smear of Miracle Whip; exactly eight celery sticks; a snack-size can of reduced-calorie fruit cocktail; and, because it's Thursday, one Milano cookie." He recited this like he had watched Holt assemble this meal every Wednesday night since the early 1990s.

"Yeah. I'll put it in the fridge," Rosa said.

"Thanks. And remember – don't tell him you saw me. Just let him think he forgot that he remembered his lunch in the first place."

Rosa got out half a syllable of "Sure thing" before she saw the door to the Captain's office open. "Quick," she whispered. "Hide under my desk."

"What?"

"You said you're not allowed to be here, right?" Rosa said. "Hide. I'll distract him so you can sneak out."

Kevin crumpled himself under Rosa's desk. She draped her jacket over his head like she'd dropped it there, to make him less conspicuous. Or possibly to make him look like a leather jacket with enormous blue shoes.

Unfortunately, of all the detectives in the precinct, Rosa was the least skilled at BSing the Captain. Normally, she didn't speak unless forced to, so he'd know she was up to something as soon as she opened her mouth. If she'd had time, she'd have made Peralta cover for her, but Holt was coming right at her.

"Detective, why is your jacket on the floor?" Holt said.

Rosa scrambled. "Dry cleaning. I'm having a messy period." The last part was true.

Holt placed a pile of file folders on Rosa's desk. "Hitchcock just turned in these case reports," he said. "Can you look them over to make sure they don't sound like a drunk kindergartener wrote them?"

"Doesn't Santiago usually do that?" Rosa said.

"She made them too perfect, and the higher-ups got suspicious. There was a memo." Holt looked askew at her, and before she could block his view of her under-desk, he asked, "Why do you have my lunch?"

"Peralta got a hold of it. He was going to take out one celery stick to see if you'd notice. I rescued it just in time."

"Thanks, Detective," Holt said, eyes already trained on Peralta. "Could you put it back in the fridge? There's nothing worse than lukewarm fruit cocktail."

**2\. Santiago**

Amy swung by Diaz's desk to pick up the paperwork that the Captain had mistakenly left there. Diaz's jacket was on the floor, which meant something was seriously wrong. She might have been hurt or kidnapped. More probably, she might have been suffering a heavy flow day and been out of tampons. Either way, Amy was great in a crisis and happy to help.

She started by picking up the jacket. When she moved it, it yelped. As it turned out, the jacket was not enchanted with magic powers or covering a pre-recorded anti-theft device, but hiding a rumpled white guy. He held out his hand and whispered, "I'm Kevin."

Remembering her training in interactions with intellectually diverse citizens, Amy knelt on the floor and said, "Hi, I'm Amy."

"Wow, you _are_ chipper," the man whispered. "Sorry. Hi. I'm Captain Holt's husband. He doesn't like me to come to the precinct, so I'm hiding under Detective Diaz's desk until I can sneak out. Is the coast clear?" He didn't sound intellectually diverse. A little loopy, but perfectly sane people seldom appeared at the Nine-Nine. Amy decided that his story checked out.

She got up from the floor and glanced toward the door. Gina was feeding Milk Bones to Mabel, the precinct's drug-sniffing dog. Mabel was the sweetest German Shepherd in the NYPD's K-9 program, and she was also the most talented. Amy had seen Mabel sniff out cocaine traces on an empty plastic bag in a pile of garbage behind a Chinese restaurant while a gas truck idled at the other end of the alley. On the other hand, Mabel's idea of stopping a suspect involved putting her paws on his chest and coating him in slobbery kisses. If Kevin tried to sneak out, Mabel would flop down on her back and whine until Kevin rubbed her tummy.

"The door's blocked," Amy said. "Better lay low for a while." But she felt sorry for the guy, and he _was_ Captain Holt's husband, which meant the Captain would be disappointed in her if she left him hunched under a desk on the disgusting floor. Amy hatched a plan. "Let me go get a blanket from the lost and found. I'll sneak you into the break room."

Amy found a gigantic red parka in the lost and found. Kevin bonked his head on the desk twice while he put it on, once so hard that he cursed kind of loudly, but everyone in the precinct was too wrapped up in their own business to notice.

Amy wanted to be more excited about meeting the Captain's husband, but the truth was, he didn't live up to her expectations. Kevin was taller than Amy would have assumed, she realized as he stood up. She would have thought Captain Holt would be attracted to someone more petite. Kevin wasn't bad-looking, she guessed, for a giant white gay guy. She decided it would be a bad idea to tell the Captain that. She also decided it would be a bad idea to hover around Kevin for the next hour, grilling him for details about Captain Holt's personal history. She'd casually invite Kevin out to brunch in a week or so, and she'd get all the information she needed that way.

As she escorted Kevin into the break room, she announced, "This homeless man needs a cup of coffee." No one even looked up. Most of them were too busy playing with Mabel. Kevin sat in the break room in his parka, looking overheated and guilty.

**3\. Holt**

It disturbed Ray that he had come to see mornings like this one as average. Despite the stern email from Lieutenant Howard about overly grammatical investigation reports, the paperwork error in Central Evidence that had brought eighteen refrigerated cartons of contraband meat products to the precinct door, and the fact that more of his staff were playing with Mabel the drug-sniffing dog than actually working, this was not one of the mornings that made him question why he'd fought so hard for a promotion. Ray had delegated the reports to a detective with middling composition skills, made the meat truck driver call his supervisor himself before returning to East Flatbush, and privately admitted that Mabel was both a credit to the K-9 program and irresistibly cute. Ray had raised several award-winning German Shepherds in the early '90s, and he'd retained a fondness for the breed.

Ray was on his way to say hello to Mabel when Boyle intercepted him. It was hard to tell when Boyle was legitimately perturbed and anxious, as that was his default facial expression. "Far be it from me to tell on anyone," Boyle said, "but Santiago put a homeless man in the break room. I wouldn't say anything, but I'm worried he'll get into the cronuts."

"Far be it from you," Ray echoed, prompting the rest of the story. Over the years, Ray had learned to respond to minor crises more slowly than might seem reasonable. No one could call him hotheaded if he stayed absurdly calm and deliberate.

"She even gave him the red parka from the lost and found," Boyle said. "The clean one with the zipper that works."

Ray did not ask whether Boyle routinely went shopping in the lost and found; any answer he received would concern him. Besides, the parka in question was way too big for Boyle. "I see," Ray said. "And how's the sports bar burglary case going?" 

"Coming along," Boyle said as he bolted away. There was no hope of solving the sports bar burglary, but figuring that out would keep Boyle busy for the rest of the day.

Santiago sat at her desk, doing the paperwork Ray had assigned to Diaz, which made it easy for Ray to solve his own small mystery. "Why is there a homeless man in my break room?"

"He was cold," Santiago said, maintaining remarkable composure.

"It's January. Brooklyn is full of cold people. Why does this particular one get the cleanest parka in the lost and found?"

"Because – because he's – not actually a homeless guy," Santiago stammered. "He's –" Her lip quivered as if there was no appropriate way to finish her sentence without violating her code of ethics.

Ray chose not to torment her. "I'll go _gently_ ask him to move on."

As soon as Ray opened the door to the break room, he saw why Santiago had been at a loss for words. The so-called homeless man was wearing shiny navy-blue wingtips, size fourteen. Ray had bought a pair just like them for Kevin's forty-sixth birthday. New York was large enough that there must have been a few more pairs in the city, but the odds were low that those pairs would make their way into the ninety-ninth precinct. "Kevin, please take off that ridiculous parka."

Kevin stood and flipped back the hood. "Hi. I'm sorry. I know ever since the quesadilla-and-gerbil fiasco, you don't want me to visit you at work, but –" 

"That poor gerbil," Ray said, observing a moment of silence for its demise.

"You forgot your lunch." Kevin had a way of filling in Ray's silences. Also an ability to obey the spirit, but not the letter, of any rule.

"I noticed as soon as I arrived this morning," Ray said. "I thought it would give me the opportunity to try the lunch special at the new sushi restaurant down the street."

"They're opening up sushi joints out _here_ now?" Kevin didn't sound incredulous so much as alert to a new business opportunity. He co-owned a dog-friendly gastropub in Park Slope, and he'd chatted about expanding.

"It's a city ordinance. One sushi place every three blocks within a five-mile radius of Times Square. We're just within the boundaries." 

Kevin chuckled. He always got Ray's jokes.

"I appreciate that you went to the trouble of bringing my lunch." Ray kissed Kevin briefly on the lips.

He heard an "Aww" behind him and discovered that the entire ninety-ninth precinct was watching him kiss his husband. He turned around, utterly composed by the time he was facing them. "Everyone, I'd like you to meet my husband, Kevin."

"It's about time," Gina said. "We were starting to think you were imaginary."

"It's a shame you're homeless, though," Peralta chimed in. "The Captain really should let you move in."

Before Ray could yell at them, Sergeant Jeffords intervened with a socially appropriate response. He shook Kevin's hand and said, "It's an honor to meet you."

This wasn't going anywhere near as poorly as Ray had expected. Kevin seemed to fit in here. He was kneeling to pet Mabel and deflecting a series of intrusive questions, both with more finesse than Ray had ever accomplished.

Ray couldn't bring himself to command that everyone get back to work. He scratched between Mabel's ears instead. She wagged her tail approvingly.


End file.
